BRIAN W. LAVERY

Make it your business to get lined up for 53ºNORTH - and put Hull on festival map

53º NORTH* – an all-new music and spoken word festival for the North is to be staged in Hull’s historic Zebedee’s Yard between Friday, June 8 to Sunday June10.

Day one, to launch this new festival will include a massive event – details of which have yet to be announced. So, watch this space.

But Saturday and Sunday’s line ups alone look set to establish this city music and arts festival for the future.

Saturday at Zebedee’s Yard will see an aces line-up including Slaves, The Horrors, Lady Bird, Night Flowers, Dream Wife and The Horrors. The event aims to highlight local talent alongside international talent in this three-day cultural bonanza.

Topping the bill on Sunday will be The Bootleg Beatles – the world’s premier Beatles tribute. They will be playing all the Fab Four’s hits accompanied by a live orchestra. There will also be more special guests to be announced soon.

And you… yes, YOU can help in a wide array of ways from simply buying tickets to digging deep and sponsoring events.

You can buy tickets for young people, or maybe for a firm’s do. Or why not have your company’s branding on their stage. There are also opportunities to have your branding on wristbands, social media and printed materials. Or you could go all-out and do all the above.

In my opinion, you cannot spend your money in many better ways than this.

£1,000 buys 35 tickets for young people to have an amazing experience. You can buy more if you wish. The same amount of cash buys tickets for a works do, or just a gift to your hard-working staff.

Stage branding can be bought for just £5,000. Just think of the thousands of people seeing YOUR brand over three days on their stage. Your company name and logo can be on wristbands for just £2,500. To have your company name and logo on all printed and digital marketing products with a potential eye-catching audience of many thousands cost just £5,000.

If you REALLY want to help you can have all the sponsorship deals above for a discounted price of £10,000. Not only will this give you a shop window of multiple thousands and an immense PR boost for your firm, but also it will help to keep going the vital work of the city’s most important youth project.

The Warren Youth Project – run by and for the people it helps – has been offering unique and multi-faceted help for the young people of our city for more than 35 years.

It has in that time provided vital creative arts, mental-health and support services to the most marginalised and vulnerable.

I have watched and been involved with them from time-to-time since the foundation year when my friend and doyen of youth leaders, Keith Russell launched and managed this vital project, until now when another of my friends, JJ Tatten, took over from Keith a few years back.

So, when JJ told me about The Warren’s 53º North event I felt compelled to do my bit in heralding this excellent idea in whatever way I can.

Over the years, The Warren continued to create concepts and events which assisted them to keep their heads above water financially – but more importantly this also allowed them to live their values of inclusive and non-judgemental help for those who need it most.

53º North is created in that tradition and will bring a unique UK music festival to the heart of the city, accompanied by an internationally-recognised and acclaimed music industry.

In these times of enforced austerity, The Warren faces constant pressure to keep going in spite of strong support from our city’s council, businesses and other outlets. That pressure fuels the ambition and idealism of the young people who run and benefit from this unique youth organisation.

53º North will help ease that burden – but it will also make an amazing event for the people of our culture city.

I cannot emphasise enough how important the work done by The Warren is. In 2017 alone, 1,494 young people visited there 17,059 times in that period to gain support from their 21 different, free services.

In the past eight years Warren Records (a label created by The Warren Youth Project charity) has been successful as not only a record label but also an artist development project. They have worked with more than 3,000 young people, delivered more than 2,000 sessions and arts workshops that launched careers for in excess of 500 young men and women as producers, technicians, stage managers, lighting and sound engineers and much more.

So, please get in touch with JJ Tatten to help this brilliant festival become a great success. His email address is: jjtatten@thewarren.org – or you can give him a call on 07930 301659.

*53º North is the line of latitude for the port city of Kingston-upon-Hull which the youth of The Warren felt would be the ideal label for their international festival.